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Saturday, November 12, 2011

More Thoughts on Manny Pacquiao vs Juan Manuel Marquez III

By Randy De La O

Jeri and I were at the hospital earlier
visiting our granddaughter Maddie (she was doing good), we walked
over to the cafeteria for some coffee. While we were sitting down
talking she asked me, “So who do you think is going to win the
fight tonight?” Referring to the Pacquiao vs Marquez fight tonight.
She already knows, so it was really just a rhetorical question.
Still, I wanted to answer it honestly. “Well, you really have to go
with Pacquiao, he's been a great fighter”. “They fought before,
right?” she asked. “Yes, and they were very close.” “Was
Marquez robbed? She asked me. “No, there was no robbery, some just
feel that the decision could have just as easily gone to Marquez but
there was no robbery.”

That's pretty much how I honestly feel.
There was no robbery involved, no one stole the victory from Marquez.
Both fights were very close. They were close enough and exciting
enough to warrant a third fight. But at 38, Marquez chances are much
slimmer now than, say, three years ago. Still, Marquez has always
been the type of fighter that I admire; a tremendous heart, great
boxing and counter punching ability, a willingness to mix it up, and
a refusal to quit.

His quiet demeanor has sometimes worked
against him. In some ways he reminds me of the great Alexis Arguello,
not so much that both were great counter punchers, but in the way
that both approached their sport. Arguello was, and Marquez is, the
type of fighter that comes to work, clocks in, does his job to the
utmost of his ability, then clocks out and goes home. No bull shit
about either fighter. Perhaps too, like Arguello, Marquez will never
beat his greatest rival but it won't be because he didn't try.

There is a type of fighter that really
gets to me. The late Joe Frazier, of course, was the epitome of that
type. I'm talking beyond style. I've mentioned before that heart is
the quality that I admire more than any other in a fighter. Sometimes
it will take a fighter to hell and back, sometimes to victory and
sometimes to defeat. So what it comes down to, to me, is not always
so much how a fighter wins but also in the way he loses. Even in
defeat some men are magnificent.

I was trying to explain to Jeri too, on
what makes a champion. There have been so many great champions over
the years (not so much lately) but what sometimes defines a great
champ is not so much that he was better than everyone but that when
facing a bigger, stronger, better fighter, he still finds a way too
win. That's what true champions do.

So, that's Juan Manuel Marquez' task
tonight. To find some kind of way to beat a younger, faster, better
fighter, with an equally big heart and with a mission that will rival
his own, These are the fights that become legend.